Deadly blasts outside China provincial Communist Party office

A series of bombs has exploded outside a government building in China's northern city of Taiyuan, killing at least one person and injuring eight.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Communist Party's Shanxi Provincial Headquarters on Wednesday.

The small-scale bombs were packed with what appears to be ball bearings to cause maximum harm.

China's official Xinhua news agency says ball bearings were seen scattered around the scene.

"The accident is suspected to be caused by self-made bombs," it said.

State broadcaster CCTV reported that some of the explosives detonated in flowerbeds at the entrance to the party provincial commission.

Debris from the explosions was cast across the road hitting nearby vehicles.

"Public security officials are currently on the scene and working all-out to investigate the incident," police said on a verified social media account.

Photos circulated on Chinese internet

Pictures posted on China's hugely popular weibo social networks showed vehicle doors peppered with small impacts, and tyres with holes punched through them.

Other photos showed car windows blown out and debris scattered across the road, and one showed two metal spheres, the size of large marbles, that appeared to have been among the ball bearings sprayed by the bombs.

Xinhua quoted two witnesses near the site who said they heard a loud noise, then saw smoke, followed by a minivan exploding.

Images showed several fire engines on a road, which had been blocked to traffic, and a large crowd on one side of the street.

Several photos that appeared to have been taken from inside a car showed billowing grey smoke rising above a city street.

The blasts come a little over a week after a car barrelled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing five people including the three occupants.

Authorities have described the incident on October 28 a "terrorist attack", saying it was carried out by several people with links to a separatist group from China's far-western Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.

The Shanxi blasts come ahead of a highly anticipated meeting of top party leaders in Beijing this weekend, at which broad economic reforms are among the items expected to be on the agenda.